Duane Reed Gallery: Friday, 10 April 2015

Duane Reed Gallery is pleased to present Akio Takamori A seminal figure in the ceramic arts for more than thirty years, Takamori explores themes of cultural dichotomy and identity by engaging the history of Eastern and Western aesthetics. Precise choice of form and color defines his body of work, which is highly expressive of human emotion and sensuality. Takamori’s rounded and sensitively underglazed figures translate several narratives at once. From Western goddess icons to grounded figures captured about their reality, Takamori’s figures are transfixing and transformative.

Exhibition opens Friday, April 10th with a reception that evening 5 – 8pm. The exhibition will run through May 16th. Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday 10-5pm.

Special Event – April 25, 2014
5:00 - 8:00 PM

Please join Duane Reed Gallery as we welcome the Youth Learning Center for a special one night exhibition of the work of these talented aspiring young artists.

Learning should be more than textbooks, lectures, and assigned seating. Learning environments can be a fun, living lab where best practices and innovation converge to meet the needs of students. Through the use of project-based learning and industry standard technology, Youth Learning Center offers a model for integrating individualized learning and Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics, or STEAM. For more than 13 years, YLC has prepared children for the jobs that do not yet exist and for the challenges that have yet to be discovered. A nurturing academic ecosystem includes our new school, The Biome; Two Degrees, our STEM workforce exploration program for teens; and year round quality enrichment opportunities that identify and develop the unique gifts and talents of youth. YLC instills in youth the confidence to act on their talents. "Paintings of a Superhero" is an event created to do just that. To better prepare our students for the future, we embrace creativity and art in our learning environments. We want to support our student's creative endeavors by providing the best possible education and an experience that they will remember for a lifetime.

Central Print: Friday, 24 April 2015

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Bonsack Gallery: Friday, 10 April 2015

Tah-Dah (detail), 40”h x 40”w, collagraph on Japanese paper

The
Bonsack Gallery at John Burroughs School will feature “The Three Muses,” a
collection of works by St. Louis artist Cheri Hoffman, from April 10 through
May 6, 2015. All are invited to an opening reception from 5:30 to 7:30 pm,
Friday, April 10.

Many of Hoffman’s works blur the line between painting and
printmaking. Paint takes shape on prepared surfaces through the action of
whatever tools are nearby e.g., a brush, the blunt side of a palette knife or a
credit card. In her Rorschach series, chance dictates the final image, the
sheet unfolded and the original impulse now doubled, is revealed. The forms
rendered through this process can be ambiguous and abstract. The shifting
figures found in Hoffman’s Rorschach pieces mirror the futility of fixing
meaning, leading us to the mystery of our musing minds.

Hoffman
explains that her home and studio are an integral part of her creative process.
“The light, space and architecture of these places are mirrored and
inextricably linked to the art,” she writes. “There is also a distant
sensibility, a thread if you will, rooted in the natural world. The images
almost always reflect a lifelong study of light, dimension and form.” Using the
alchemy of oil and wax along with pencil, paint and monotype, Hoffman explores
the use of pattern, texture, surface and light.

Philip Slein Gallery: Friday, 10 April 2015

The Philip Slein Gallery is pleased to present Deep
Focus, the first St. Louis exhibition for noted New York painter David
Row.

Row paints in heavily worked layers of
lush oil paint, gradually forming a dense network of marks and lines. Broad
swaths of color highlight and disguise underlying grounds, themselves
crisscrossed by the artist’s familiar elliptical bands. In Row’s most recent
work, the drama of these geometric compositions plays out across a new format.
Irregular polygonal shaped canvasses assert themselves as jewel-like objects,
defining the conversation unfolding within their borders. Meanwhile, Row’s
curvilinear forms continue to behave according to their own secret logic,
carving architectural paths through space.

The Philip Slein Gallery is also pleased to
present Measured Painting, an exhibition of abstract paintings by
Robert Zungu. Each painting employs an
advanced chroming technique affixing silver metal deposits onto an
aluminum-faced board. Repeated geometric patterns sourced from 19th
century hand cut paper stencils originally used to adorn Japanese
kimonos are then applied to the mirrored surface using white iridescent
enamel ink. The works invoke figuration by enabling viewers to see their
reflection in the painting's mirrored surface. Zungu's repeated geometry, which
appears opaque on the surface of the painting, is superimposed onto the
beholder as an ethereal reflection.

Grafica Fine Arts: Friday, 27 March 2015

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Clayton Fine Art Gallery: Friday, 20 March 2015

Mark Witzling: The Contemporary American Abstract

Mark Witzling captures the power of positive memories in his contemporary abstract oil and mixed media paintings. Collected internationally, this is an opportunity to meet the artist in person and view a selection of his work. Please join us for this special event

The Millitzer Studio and Gallery: Friday, 27 March 2015

Friday, 27 March 2015

The Millitzer Studio and Gallery in St. Louis is pleased to present Reductions,
an exhibition of recent paintings by Samantha Haring, on view by appointment
from March 27th through April 18th. There will be an opening reception on March
27th from 7pm to 10pm.

Samantha Haring makes quiet paintings in a noisy world. Her work is an intimate
meditation on humble objects and the detritus of studio life. Haring blurs the
line between abstraction and representation by carefully observing and
depicting random drips, marks, and scribbles. She utilizes the paint residue on
her studio walls and floor as subject matter to describe the intangibility of
loss. Broader questions about absence and presence arise from the ‘empty’
studio spaces and abandoned objects. The title Reductions refers to not only
the simplicity of an empty studio, but also the potential for rediscovering the
profound within the mundane. For more information on Haring and her work,
please visit her website: www.samharing.com

Creating figurative work in response to the body and psyche,
these two artists surpass the very life they seek to depict. Constructing
both art objects and energetic systems, GARDINER and HILTON turn their subjects
inside out, illuminating the psychological and ethereal components of existence
as an extension of the physical.

In her paintings and drawings, RALEIGH GARDINER, collages
the manifest content of her "mindscapes" into luscious oval snapshots
overflowing with psychological and emotional density. In larger abstracts she
anthropomorphizes the invisible in her Scenes from a Totemic Bestiary.
Her work is somehow sovereign, vulnerable and always mysterious.

Sculptor, LISA HILTON, creates female figures that conjure,
decipher and respond to invisible forcers. With their gestures and
expressions these sculptures trace the invisible and outline for us to what was
previously only felt. With skins of stone and lichen, these ceramic
sculptures live in the geo-psychic realm of magical realism.

Hours: Wednesday & Saturday 1-4pm This event is free and open to the public.

Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the opening reception of Chris Kahler: On Paper and a retrospective exhibition of Max Starkloff 1960s paintings on Friday, March 27th from 6 to 9 pm at its Grand Center gallery. “On Paper” offers a unique body of work emerging from a three-year exploration of drawing, systematic drafting, and watercolor techniques. Kahler’s exploration of negative space, light, and intersecting planes has resulted in arresting juxtapositions of biomorphic and ephemeral forms. As with “Disequencing”, Kahler’s 2013 exhibition of paintings at Bruno David Gallery, these drawings explore the “boundaries between physical and psychological time, between phenomena and the variable conceptual filters for understanding them.” In conjunction with the exhibition, Bruno David Gallery Publications will publish a catalogue on the artist’s work with an exhibition history and bibliography.

In the Project Room, we are pleased to introduce a retrospective exhibition of paintings by Max Starkloff. In conjunction with the exhibition Max Starkloff: A Retrospective; Bruno David Gallery Publications will publish a catalog on the artist’s work with an exhibition history and bibliography and essays by Robert Duffy and Charles E. Claggett.

In 1959, at the age of 21, Max Starkloff was in a car accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. His doctors doubted he would live longer than a few days and, if he survived, his quality of life would be diminished. Max’s mother, divorced and supporting three children, tried for nearly four years to care for Max at home before reluctantly placing him in a nursing home managed by Franciscan Brothers in Eureka, Missouri. Max, aged 25, was sent to a facility for men, whose average age was 80. In the nursing home, Max met Brother Matthew, a 40-year-old Franciscan artist. He offered to teach Max how to paint holding the brush clenched between his teeth. Brother Matthew positioned Max close to the canvas, squeezed tubes of colors onto the palette, and began teaching Max how to draw simple shapes. By the winter of 1964, only four months after meeting Brother Matthew, Max began painting six hours a day. His work was exhibited at Kenrick Seminary and Saint Louis University. Max’s last exhibit was at Maryville College in December 1969 at which he presented 30 paintings.

In 1969, his sense of perception was shifting. Watching television as the Civil Rights Movement unfolded, Max began to wonder whether his rights and others with disabilities were being addressed. He gave up painting and became a leader in the movement for independent living and disability rights. He co-founded the Paraquad organization with his wife Colleen in 1970, and established it as one of the first 10 federally funded Independent Living Centers in the nation. Additionally, in 1983, he co-founded the National Council on Independent Living (with Marca Bristo, Judy Heumann, Lex Frieden and Charlie Carr). Max would go on to establish the Starkloff Disability Institute in 2003.

Max Starkloff’s legacy of dedication to the ongoing fight for Civil Rights has changed the face of our nation, helping America to redefine the meaning of independence for the 21st century. Starkloff lobbied for legislation for curb cuts and disabled parking, as well as for the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. He won a President’s Distinguished Service Award in 1991, and was awarded a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Max Starkloff was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1937. He passed away in December 2009. The exhibition Max Starkloff: A Retrospective will be open to the public from March 27 to June 27, 2015

In the Media Arts Room, the gallery presents a short documentary (9:20 min) “Max Starkloff: A Life” by Gary Womack, on the life of Max Starkloff and his legacy as a Civil Rights leader and as an artist.

Hours: Wednesday through Saturday 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM. The gallery is located between N. Grand and N. Spring Avenues and is wheelchair accessible. Accessible street crosswalk is at the corner of N. Spring Avenue and Washington Boulevard.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Framations Art Gallery: Friday, 20 March 2015

St. Charles, MO - Framations Art Gallery is pleased to invite the
public to an Opening Reception for two new exhibits on Friday, March 20, 2015
from 6-8pm. In the Main Gallery there will be a themed juried exhibit titled
"In Transit 2: journey, change, and motion". Artists were encouraged
to interpret the theme and explore the subject matter with ideas such as the
use of vehicles,
implied motion, changes in light, journey in time, etc. Awards for this exhibit
will be announced at the reception and visitors will be able to vote for
People's Choice that night and for the full length of the exhibit, through
April 23.

In Gallery Two, there
will be a solo exhibit of photography by John Blair entitled "Object
Relations". Here, Blair explores life's
meaning through an investigation of the figurative form. He states: "My
work is deeply grounded in a post modern perspective that assumes meaning is
primarily subjective and created between the interactions of what is observed
and experienced. I am interested in the interplay of interaction where
creativity evolves from the shared space of the observation and the experience
of it." Blair's work will also be on display through April 23.

Reese Gallery: Satruday 7 March 2015

Reese Gallery presents the current exhibit, YET UNFULFILLED, where two artists touch upon dreams unrealized and the weight of a fast approaching future. Kahlil Irving, creates sculpture under pressure, where his richly encrusted masses suggest machined compaction. By layering gold lusters and luscious patterns over slip cast re-creations of debris, he questions our relationship with the “throw away” object in the context of commercialism and urban decay.In contrast to Irving, photographer Erica Popp, turns her camera outward to rural landscapes. Here, she confronts a melancholy found only in the flat wide-open spaces of the mid-western countryside - perhaps hinting at the vulnerability of the family farm, once a vision of the American Dream. While her landscapes are quiet and bleak, they still offer a sense of promise, like the potential of fields in winter. Both Kahlil Irving and Erica Popp create visually intriguing compositions expressing apprehension at the state of the American Dream “yet unfulfilled” .The exhibition is on view February 6th, through March 14th, 2015 with a free public closing for the artists on Saturday, March 7th, 2015 from 1:00 – 4:00 PM.

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Atrium Gallery: friday, 13 March 2015

"Through a Lens Clearly"Photography
by Jerome HawkinsMarch
13 – May 2

"Mille Lacs," 1999 black and white
photograph 25 1/8" x 29 1/8"

Atrium Gallery invites you to an exhibition of black and white photography
by Jerome
Hawkins. With a highly refined eye, Hawkins has
captured some beautiful, elegant images of slices from our landscape.
His exceptional skill with composition and production brings a body
of work worthy of significant professional praise, and appreciation from
a wide audience. Encountering these finished prints often inspires
viewers to respond with love, care, and hope to preserve these elements
so precious to our future in a healthy and giving environment.

Also Shown will be a group installation in the Small Gallery presenting
photography by Avery Danziger, Carl Goldhagen, and Kirk Pedersen

The exhibition opens with a reception for the artist, Friday, March 13
from 6 – 8 p.m. and will run through May 2.

The Luminary: Friday, 13 March 2015

Join us on March 13th and
14th as we open Counterpublic,
an exhibition that will feature projects in spaces throughout the Cherokee
Street neighborhood, including work from Dread Scott, Alberto Aguilar,
Damon Davis, Work/Play and more.

In March, we will also be presenting acclaimed critic-in-residence Lori
Waxman's 60
wrd/min art critic in partnership with fort gondo as well
as welcoming several other new residents to St. Louis. Finally, save the
date for the FORM Contemporary Design Show, which returns for the fourth year
on April 24th and 25th!

Dread Scott, Stop, Two-Channel HD Video, 2012

Counterpublic + Lori Waxman

Join us on Friday, March 13th from 6 to 8pm and Saturday, March 14th
from 12 to 6pm for the opening of Counterpublic.

Opening over the course of two days, Counterpublic is an expansive exhibition that commissions artists to create a series of projects that engage a different conception of cultural space, with a particular emphasis on the charged dynamics in St. Louis and, more specifically, in our own neighborhood. The exhibition will open simultaneously at The Luminary and at various locations throughout the Cherokee Street neighborhood featuring work from Alberto Aguilar, Damon Davis, EDELO, Lucky Pierre, Dread Scott, Sean Starowitz, and Work/Play.

Counterpublic addresses the complex publics
that make up a community, presenting artists and artworks that speak unevenly
across space, aiming for a form of public art that folds into the vibrancy of
daily life and responds to the pressing issues of our city and of our time.

Projects include:

Alberto Aguilar at El Torito & The Luminary

Damon Davis at The Luminary

EDELO at multiple locations

Lucky Pierre at Black Bear Bakery

Dread Scott at multiple locations

Sean Starowitz at GooolllWork/Play at Sweet ShearsSchedule:
Opening Reception: March 13th from 6 to 8pm Guided Tours: March 14th at 1pm and 5pm Performance by Alberto Aguilar: March 14th at 3pm Final Meals
Communal Dinner with Lucky Pierre: March 14th at 7pm at Black Bear Bakery

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

duet: Friday, 6 March 2015

Robert Goetz (St. Louis)

and Thomas
Harris (Los Angeles)

March
6 - May 2, 2015

Opening Reception: March 6, 6pm-8pm, followed by a"Norweigan Death Metal" concert.

Every society in every time has had
its masks that suited the mood of the society, from the elegance of a Venetian
Masked Ball to the occidental theatrics of the Jihadi in a balaklava to the
airbrushed war paint of female makeup. People want to act out a feeling inside
themselves-anger, sadness, happiness, lust via the mask. It may be a sad
commentary on present-day America that horror masks are the best sellers. If
you know the construction of a painting, you have a wood frame and you stretch
canvas over it. So that structure is kind of important, and you can't really go
beyond that, eventually the image is a mask the structure wears and the face grows
to fit it.

Harris's objects are boxes and
Goetz's are prints. Both sets act as masks. If you see the conventional
painting frame, it's kind of thin. But in Harris's case, wood stretcher bars
become a box to then stretch material over it and produce sound. His work here
is loosely based on Halloween III's plot to replace children with Androids
which was a low rent thriller from the first frame, including a skull, a
lime-green witch and an orange jack-o'-lantern.

Goetz's prints of Apes reveal the debased
primate behind the human mask. His apes exhibit the ability to
imitate intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of
a human...just not a very admirable or desirable set of humans though.

The Dark Room: Saturday, 7 March 2015

Crime Scenes by Sarah-Marie Land, The Dark Room’s next photography
exhibition is on display from March 7th through April 30th, and will
celebrate its opening on Saturday, March 7th, 2015 with a reception held by
Sarah Marie, the International Photography Hall of Fame & Museum, and
curator Jason Gray from 6-9pm.

“Beginning with a collection of news articles, crimes specific to
the city of St. Louis, I commenced the creation of a series of fragmented
images and text. After having researched the selected crimes, articles, I
traveled to each exact location and investigated the visual environment. I am
extremely drawn to the manner in which objects, spaces and environments are organized
– the way in which visual elements are connected (i.e. – natural and man-made).
I also seek to better understand our psychological associations and experiences
with physical spaces, structures.

I explored this project in an investigative manner similar to that
of Sophie Calle, Thomas Demand, Weegee, Frances Glessener Lee and Corinne May
Botz (The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death), and Anglea
Strassheim. In particular, Calle assumes the role of a detective in her
project titled, “The Hotel”, where she documents the objects and belongings of
hotel guests in a voyeuristic manner. Assuming the role of detective, I also
approached and explored each crime scene in a voyeuristic, detective-like
manner. In addition, I was fascinated with her project “The Blind”, as she
incorporates images and texts, actual events and reimagined visualizations. I
believe the photographs by Corinne May Botz (The Nutshell Studies of
Unexplained Death) are also a great influence concerning the reconstruction
of a crime scene. In my work, I deconstruct an environment while constructing
an image.

The asymmetrical landscapes are visual and
psychological dissections of a crime in a particular environment. By
creating diptychs, I seek to challenge and extend understandings of the actual
and imagined.”

- Sarah-Marie Land

“Photography is easily one of the most elusive mediums in
art. This is because responses to the photographic are so varied; one can
be enthralled by the subject depicted or the compositional design, just as
easily as they can be struck with a sense of familiarity, even solidarity, or
conversely, dismay. An image made by a camera imparts all sorts of
wisdom, about a person, place or thing, at the same moment as it conceals the
full truth about that object.

When one approaches Sarah-Marie Land's Crime Scenes for
the first time, the possibilities are endless. What are these places so
curiously juxtaposed? Does it matter that I recognize some of the
locations, but not others? What is the connection between all of
these? As I stood, staring into one of the diptychs, a memory linked to
the location that I was viewing came to me. Then I read the small caption
beneath the photographs, and the experience that I was having vaporized in an
instant. The mystery was revealed, and suddenly all of the possibilities
that had just existed became one. This is not a trap, nor is it an
accident.

That the artist should cite Sophie Calle and Thomas Demand as
influences is not surprising. For, like those artists, Land's work
constructs an interplay between the artist, photograph and viewer that invites
a dialogue between photographic truth and obfuscation.”

- Curator, Jason Gray

Monday: closed. Tuesday-Thursday: 4pm-11pm. Friday-Saturday: 4pm-12am. Sunday: Open on some Sundays during high theater season. Check social media & website for updates.

Sunday, March 01, 2015

Componere Gallery: Sunday, 1 March 2015

Masks and ritualistic objects have always fascinated me. The forms these objects can take are limitless. In primitive cultures, these objects are painstakingly constructed with a real purpose:function is more important than mere ornamentation – which I find very exciting. In my work, I explore common materials using fairly rudimentary tools to “organize” them into sources of mystery. Combined rusticity with disciplined composition and focus is my primary aim. My extensive use of found objects with acquired “power”- is my attempt to mimic the aboriginal. I’d call myself a modern primitive who creates from the gleanings of an industrial society. I believe my work benefits because I’m self-taught, so external influences are attenuated. Although my father was a classically trained artist, he encouraged me but never exerted influence. My aim is to derive inspiration totally from within myself. Think of what I do as an exercise in making green art, so to speak. Some have described my work asoutsider art. I see it a contemporary folk art laced with a touch of tongue-in-cheek.